Going Colourless

It is no secret that many Commander decks live and die by their colourless Mana rocks. To the surprise of nobody, Sol Ring is by far the most played card in Commander, according to EDHRec.com. Wizards itself has crowned it the poster child of the format, reprinting it as part of every single pre-constructed deck.

While many have advocated the banning of the card due to the supposed unfair advantage it provides, Sol Ring has largely become the gentlemen agreement of the format, a card that is admittedly very powerful, but which is also too strongly imbued in the very soul of Commander to be kicked out. We could draw an easy parallel with Brainstorm in Legacy: likely the strongest and definitely the most played card in the format, it glues whole decks together and it essentially shapes the entire Legacy metagame.

The accessibility of colourless Mana rocks turns them into flexible tools for every deck in need of a ramping boost. And while many Green decks may frown upon the relatively mediocre ramping of Ur Golem’s Eye, decks with limited access to Land ramping may be looking at colourless Mana ramp to pursue a high level of ramping efficiency.

For the sake of this article, we will be only looking at colourless Mana rocks. While in the previous article we focused on coloured Mana, colour fixing is now out of the equation. The goal is to get more Mana, its colour does not necessarily matter. As a result, monocoloured and two-colour decks are likely to be the most impacted by this analysis. Taking things to the extreme, you can look at my Kozilek, Butcher of Truth deck, where efficient and consistent generation of Mana is the only goal of its many Mana rocks.

Colourless Mana rock benchmarks

Just like we did in our previous article, let’s start by understanding what are the realistic efficiency levels that can be expected for colourless Mana roc generation:

1. Mana Crypt is the true outlier of the format, providing a two Mana output for no Mana investment, only taxing the player’s life total for an average of 1.5 life each turn; unsurprisingly, the card is considered among the most powerful Mana rocks in the format and it has been sometimes mentioned as worthy of a ban
2. 3.0 is among the highest efficiency rates in the format, achieved only by Mana Vault and at the cost of the card not untapping on the following turn; having an untap cost greater than its Mana output, this qualifies mostly as a one-shot output during the first turns of the game
3. 2.0 is the almost unparalleled level of efficiency provided by Sol Ring; while this sets a strong precedence for what can be done in the Commander, it really is a one-of case, as there is no other card in the format with a similar ratio and with no downside whatsoever; an hypothetical double Sol Ring, costing two mana and generating four would likely be too powerful for any Magic format we know
4. 1.5 is the efficiency level represented by Grim Monolith, although the card suffers from the doesn’t untap clause we have already seen in Mana Vault; this time, however, the cost of untapping can be paid at any time; as a result, the card easily lends itself to Power Artifact shenanigans
5. 1.0 is the ratio that can be achieved by Basalt Monolith, which joins the club of cards that don’t untap without a Mana investment and which, much like the aforementioned Grim Monolith, easily combos off with Power Artifact
6. 0.75 is the efficiency rate achievable by Thran Dynamo; the card is extremely simple in its design and it provides a quite unique rate, which is found in no other colourless Mana rock in the format
7. 0.67 is the efficiency level achieved by Worn Powerstone, at the cost of having the card entering the battlefield tapped; while this is a common downside for coloured Mana rocks, it is relatively rare among the most played colourless Mana rocks in the format
8. 0.5 is close to the relatively fair ratio of cards like Mind Stone, Hedron Archive and Dreamstone Hedron; as mentioned in our previous article, the effect of converting the Mana rock itself into one or more cards is an additional bonus that slightly skews the efficiency rate; nevertheless, it’s interesting to note how the principle of diminishing returns results in Mind Stone being very beloved in the format, while Dreamstone Hedron sees play only in specific decks

Much like we did last time, we can place each of these cards in a scaled graph and identify the “fine” line, to the right of which we tend to only find unexciting efficiency ratios.

The graph has also been enriched with a couple areas, encompassing mentioned Mana rocks that do not autonomously untap and famously “problematic” cards – by which I only mean the trifecta of Sol Ring, Mana Crypt and Mana Vault, although I am not implying any of these are actually worthy of a ban, in my opinion.

What is missing

If we compare the above graph to what we drafted for coloured Mana rocks, we find out the efficiency ratios here are way more diverse. This is good for the purposes of our analysis, as we have way more milestones and benchmarks to play around.

First and foremost, we have a number of missing intersections that could be easily filled. Among them, the very intuitive intersection of one Mana cost and one Mana output would represent a less powerful version of Sol Ring. Having to withstand such a tough comparison, it would be safe to assume that a card like this, with no additional effect, would be more than safe in our format, albeit unexciting.

Borrowing inspiration from Mind Stone, the card could also feature a self-replacement ability, maybe with an adjusted activation cost to compensate for the cheaper casting cost. Something like the following would likely be an interesting new card for the format.

Another intersection that is largely untouched falls between the two Mana cost and two Mana output. Here the situation is a bit trickier, as Sol Ring is again a very hard benchmark to be compared to. On the other hand, Magic has established that the cost for two additional colourless Mana is between three and four generic Mana, thanks to non-problematic cards like Worn Powerstone and Hedron Archive.

As a thought experiment, I’d like to come up with something closer and more aligned to Worn Powerstone and Hedron Archive, rather than Sol Ring. This simply because coming up with a two Mana Sol Ring would just be a lazy design. Safe for the format and not as powerful as the original, but close to another ubiquitous card that most decks would be happy to play.

Let’s instead focus on how Worn Powerstone could be edited to fill the existing gap. Mixing a bit of what we saw from surrounding areas of the scaled graph, the reduced Mana cost of this new card could be easily balanced by having the Artifact being unable to untap on its own. Of course, the cost of untapping the Artifact would have to be at least equal to its Mana output, to prevent self-fuelling infinite engines.

Having the card also entering the battlefield tapped, like the original Worn Powerstone, would at this point turn it into a worse Ur Golem’s Eye, potentially coming into play untapped, if paid for immediately. This because, as we have established, the untapping cost would necessarily be at least two Mana.

All thing considered, removing the enter the battlefield tapped clause would probably be relatively safe. Not only that, but it would lead to a card not unlike Basalt Monolith, which would fall right into place in an untouched slot and would likely result in a relatively clean design.

Interestingly, we could now theorize a linear “basalt” line, encompassing Basalt Monolith, Sunscorched Jewel and all other potential combinations of equal integer values of Mana cost and Mana output. Sure, a Basalt Monolith costing one Mana, generating one Mana and untapping for one Mana would compare very unfavourably with Sol Ring. But, in the end, what doesn’t?

The complete picture

If we try and merge everything together, from the coloured Mana rocks of our previous article to the colourless staples of the format, passing through the mock cards we have theorized, we end up with a quite dense graph.

Some interesting phenomena can be noted. First and foremost, Magic has often used the enters the battlefield tapped clause to balance Mana availability at its most critical stages of the game. This tool is often used in the middle of our graph, where Artifacts cost between two and three Mana and generate between one and two. Design-wise, this is really a space worth exploring, as it may allow to print aggressively costed version of existing cards, with just the added downside of entering the battlefield tapped:

1. Would a four Mana Gilded Lotus entering the battlefield tapped be too good in Commander? On one side, it would lead to a turn four that has not impacted the board; on the other, that same turn would be followed by a turn five with eight available Mana, which would be quite a spectacle
2. What if we introduced a new Sol Ring entering the battlefield tapped? Would it lead to a too unbalanced format, with decks effectively having access to two Sol Rings?

The top-left corner of our graph is empty, but surrounded by cards. Any Magic player knows that’s where the coveted Black Lotus would fit. Or, more correctly, that’s where a persisting, non-self-sacrificing Black Lotus would fit. Needless to say, this is largely an uncharted territory that I believe Magic is not ready to explore. Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus have established that the cost of three immediate Mana, with no downside, is between four and five Mana, depending on the output’s colour. We could try and theorize what a realistic downside for a permanent Black Lotus would be, but even adding the dreaded “at the beginning of your next end step, you lose the game” clause would probably result in a bad Commander card and an immediately restricted Vintage card.

Moving downwards and linking back to our previous article, it is interesting to note how the Moxen available in Commander see relatively small play, despite their colourless nature. None of the legal Moxen are among the one hundred most played cards of the format, according to EDHRec.com. Between their relatively limited availability and the quite notable downsides, the legal Moxen often end up being not worth the effort.

Quite frankly, this leads me to believe that, were they legal, the original Moxen would be relatively fine in a multiplayer format like Commander. Sure, Mox Ruby would be an extremely powerful card in Commander, but would it really be too much in a format with Mana Crypt or Sol Ring? Of course, most Commander players would not be willing to spend hundreds of dollars for a Vintage staple, but what if we borrowed inspiration from the Battlebond Lands and ended up with something like this?

Where this leads us

I hope I managed to paint a complete and orderly picture of the most notable Mana rocks in Commander, in terms of efficiency. It is my belief that designing new cards is a process that could really benefit from a complete understanding of the missing pieces we currently have in the format. Some efficiency ratios are yet to be explored and others can probably be finetuned into new designs.

This leads us to asking ourselves: how many of the Eternal staples can and should we have in our format? How can we adapt existing cards into new designs, making sure they become good, but not excessively powerful Commander cards? How do we make sure we do not warp other Eternal formats due to a lack of foresight in card design?

The Battlebond Lands have proven to be a huge success in Commander, so what more can we expect from sets focused on multiplayer action? Until then, I’ll be in the corner, hoarding Mana rocks for my Kozilek, Butcher of Truth deck.

The cost of ramping

A couple of weeks ago we estimated how Land ramping in Magic has an intrinsic average efficiency of 0,5. In other words, having one additional Mana available on the next turn usually costs two Mana during the current turn.

Our analysis was focused exclusively on Land-based ramping, which, especially in Commander, is considered among the most reliable ways to accelerate your battleplan. Lands are in fact among the most resilient permanents the game has to offer. The means to destroy them are way scarcer than, for instance, Creature removal options.

To put things into perspective: at the time of writing, Strip Mine is played in roughly 33’000 decks on EDHREC.com, while Swords to Plowshares happens to be in almost 66’000 EDHREC.com decks, despite its colour restriction of being White instead of Colourless. To be fair, it is worth mentioning that Swords to Plowshares has a far higher reprint count than Strip Mine.

That said, Green is really the only colour capable of such a redundant and consistent ramp, with most of the non-Green decks forced to rely on rocks for colourless or coloured Mana acceleration. The higher accessibility of Mana rocks is, quite intuitively, balanced by a lower level of resilience, compared to Land ramp. Although one could expect to also see a decrease in efficiency when moving from Land ramp to Mana rocks, it is interesting to note that this is not always the case.

Rampant Growth, the benchmark for Land ramping, guarantees access to an additional Mana of any colour during the following turn. An immediate comparison comes in the form of Coldsteel Heart, which provides the same level of efficiency over the same turn span. Of course, Land-related and Artifact-related synergies may lead players to pick one alternative over the other. Aside for that, the greater vulnerability of Artifacts is usually the main aspect that gets brought to the table when selecting between the two.

I would like to separate further analysis between coloured and colourless Mana rocks, as they present rather different levels of efficiency based on the desired output. Once we have identified some notable benchmarks, we can try and see if any trend or direct correlation exists.

Coloured Mana rocks benchmarks

As exemplified by the already mentioned Coldsteel Heart, the easier comparison between Land ramp and Mana rocks comes with the analysis of Artifacts providing coloured Mana. Just for the sake of clarity, here we’re grouping all Mana rocks providing Mana of one or more colours. These include both cards providing Mana of a single colour, like Fire Diamond, and cards providing Mana of any colour, like Darksteel Ingot.

We can find some examples of defined efficiency ratios among the most played cards in Commander, which will serve as benchmarks for further discussions:

1. 0.5 is the already mentioned efficiency level set for coloured Mana on the following turn; again, Coldsteel Heart is the perfect example; as anticipated, this is aligned with the Land ramping efficiency we identified in our previous article on the topic
2. 0.33 is close to the efficiency level set for an additional coloured Mana available on the same turn; this is not the exact efficiency level that can be achieved for this effect, as a card like Manalith sees little to no play in the format, getting instead overshadowed by equivalents that add something more to the equation; the aforementioned Darksteel Ingot includes the benefit of being indestructible, cards like Dimir Locket can turn themselves into actual card advantage, and so on
3. 0.6 is the efficiency level that can be achieved when economies of scale kick in, as exemplified by Gilded Lotus; while this seems to be a true outlier for ramping efficiency purposes, it is worth mentioning how additional Mana in the later turns of the game tends to lose value, compared to the first, key turns; to put things in Magic terms, ramping from two to four Mana tends to be way more crucial than ramping from six to eight; for an economic explanation of this concept, I strongly suggest to check out the concept of diminishing returns

Having defined these main benchmarks for coloured Mana rocks, there is a couple of further outliers that are probably worth mentioning. Again, I’d like to frame these in the context of their Mana efficiency to understand where they fit in the economy of Commander:

1. 0.67 is a coloured Mana efficiency that can be achieved every other turn by Coalition Relic, a card that, to this day, I have troubles understanding; its effect is quite interesting, design-wise, as it either functions as a pseudo Manalith, or it stores its Mana for a turn, doubling its output for the following; because of its unique nature, it is quite challenging to really consider it a three-Mana-for-two-Mana rock, but I thought it was worth mentioning it, at least for the sake of completeness
2. 0.5 is a level of coloured Mana efficiency that can be achieved on the same turn by Coveted Jewel, another interesting card that is very hard to frame in terms of pure Mana efficiency; as a coloured Mana generator it is quite impressive, even when keeping in mind the concept of diminishing returns; the fact that it also draws three cards upon entering the battlefield is an incredible upside, balanced by the very critical aspect of having it losing consistency due to its unique downside
3. 0.2 is an efficiency level that is usually deemed too low for Commander purposes, unless coupled with very strong additional effects; while Meteorite sees little to no play in the format, Pyromancer’s Goggles and Tome of the Guildpact can see play when the additional effect makes the card worthy of a slot in the deck
4. Moving to the opposite side, we encounter the egregious slot of the Moxen: Mox Opal, Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond; these cards balance a free one Mana output with a more or less restrictive clause, such as discarding a Land card, exiling a coloured card or needing two more Artifacts to be powered up

One side note is due, before we move forward: the Moxen indeed possess the highest efficiency ratio of all the card we mentioned so far. On the other hand, their conditional usage or downside make them harder to frame in the context of this analysis; therefore, we will elaborate on their role in Commander in subsequent articles.

The coloured Mana “fine” line

Having established average ratios, we can easily map them on a scaled graph.

First and foremost, it is interesting to note how we can identify a “fine” line, connecting two of the examples of powerful coloured Mana rocks. For the purposes of this plotting, we are excluding Coldsteel Heart from our analysis, as its enters the battlefield tapped nature skews its Mana output of a turn, compared to Darksteel Ingot and Gilded Lotus. Again, for the purposes of this analysis we will be considering Darksteel Ingot as the benchmark for three-Mana-for-one-Mana rocks, without factoring in the additional effects or abilities these cards may have.

Assuming the curve linking these two benchmarks together is indeed a straight line, we can determine its equation to be something like:

Coloured Mana output = Mana input – 2

While at first glance this looks like a solid assumption, a couple of additional conditions are to be noted:

1. The line is valid only for integer values of both coloured Mana output and coloured Mana input; Magic as a game only operates on integer values – aside, of course, for Just Desserts and the other Un-cards
2. While the line itself is not necessarily limited to specific ranges, it indeed ceases to make sense below the three Mana value of Darksteel Ingot and its equivalents; past that point we would get into a two mana investment for a zero Mana output, which would be pointless; decreasing further, we would get into negative values of Mana, which, again, do not exist in Magic

Having defined this line, we can see how most of the available coloured Mana rocks to its right can be considered somehow underwhelming, if not for their added properties. While I would never question anyone’s choice of running Pyromancer’s Goggles or Tome of the Guildpact in their Commander decks, I would expect this to be mostly due to the cards’ additional effects and not to the Mana output alone.

Missing pieces

Assuming we can use this line for predictive purposes, we can theorize mock versions of potential new cards that would be safely printable in Commander and, maybe, draw parallels with existing Magic cards from outside of the sole Mana rock environment.

Along the “fine” line we identified, we easily meet the integer values crossing of a four Mana investment for a two coloured Mana output. And that would easily translate into a card like the following.

Not only would the above mock card be in line with existing effects seeing print, but, linking back to our parallel with Land ramping, it would also echo the effect of Explosive Vegetation, a card that sees plenty of Commander play, but which has never proven to be too powerful. On top of that, we would be looking at a coloured – and arguably more powerful – version of Sisay’s Ring, which, as a card, has itself been overshadowed by Hedron Archive.

Jumping a little bit ahead of ourselves, we can draw some parallels between colourless and coloured Mana rocks, to frame exactly where a card like Flower of Fecundity would fit. Hedron Archive sets a very strong precedence, sanctioning how a 0.5 efficiency rate for colourless Mana is not necessarily enough to make a good Mana rock. An additional effect is demanded to make the card worth playing. In fact, players can have easy access to a 0.67 colourless Mana efficiency rate via Thran Dynamo at the four Mana cost mark.

On the other hand, we have established quite intuitively that the ability to convert a Mana rock into a new card is often used as a relevant add-up to existing and relatively underplayed cards. In other words, Manalith sees very little Commander play, while Dimir Locket is an unexciting, but relatively playable card in Blue-Black decks.

By pseudo-reverse engineering the most played Mana rocks costing three to four Mana, I would say it’s safe to assume that trading off the efficiency of Thran Dynamo for a coloured Mana output would be relatively safe in a format where Explosive Vegetation has already been established as a very safe and balanced card.

On the other hand, should we be concerned by the idea of allowing all colours to have their own untapped Explosive Vegetation, we could introduce one of the limitations we have already seen for coloured Mana rocks.

Where I think this new tapped version of the card fails is in its positioning on the scaled graph we introduced. By placing it in the four-mana-for-two-Mana intersection, we may be led to believe that another “tapped line” exists, linking together Coldsteel Heart and Flower of Fecundity. This seems to be a relatively reasonable trade-off, as it moves from the two-Mana-for-one-Mana intersection of Coldsteel Heart and builds upwards.

By simply looking at the graph, we can theorize the following equation to be reasonable for Mana rocks in Commander:

Coloured Mana output (tapped) = 0.5 x Mana input

By plotting this straight line towards higher Mana costs, we would be tempted to guess that a linear progression is indeed to be expected. In other words, that a card like the following would be reasonable for printing and quite acceptable for Commander purposes.

And before we move forward, it is obvious to see how unfavourably a card like this would compare to Gilded Lotus. Either due to the phenomenon of diminishing returns, either because the line we plotted is simply unrealistic, Nightshade Violet is a card that just compares poorly to most of the other options we have in Commander.

We could move things forward and theorize a nonlinear link between Mana input and tapped coloured Mana output. However, we seem to simply have too few points to perform a realistic plotting.

Moving forward

While the introduction of parabolas would be an excellent subject for a future article, I’d like to first focus on the missing part of all this analysis: colourless Mana rocks.

These are the joy and the bane of the format, depending on who you talk to. Sol Ring is either the most ban-worthy and the most iconic card of the format. And sometimes it’s both. Join me in the next article on Mana rocks, where we will be looking at efficiency and trends of colourless Mana.

And, finally, we will also attempt some colourless-to-coloured comparison for Mana rocks’ output.